If D/W win gold medal at GPF, I predict B/A will withdraw at Nationals, the same pattern that they have always done. They have no reason to compete at Nationals and lose to D/W. B/A know that USFSA will have hard time backing them as US number one team going to Oly.

I have been appalled by enthusiast's comments. They are simply disrespectful and bombastic and I can't believe that he hasn't been reprimanded or booted out. Oh, and watch this guy (or girl) quote my quote from years back for the 25th time in about 10 minutes ...ALWAYS forgetting the fact that at least I retracted my comments after I reflected upon them and found them unjustly harsh.

This is purely speculation on my part, but I get the sense that while they are undeniably talented and worthy of praise, V/M have benefited greatly in the (positive) hype they receive because they had the path cleared for them in Canada when D/L retired. To be fair, this also presented them with the opportunity to become the leaders in their own country and step up the level of their skating. Still, they have the full force of their federation behind them, boosting their best qualities while D/W have had to work their way up more slowly in the shadow of B/A. That has led to them being overlooked sometimes. Their best qualities have tended to be diminished by relative lack of media attention.

V/M were put in a position to take over as the top Canadian team, but they rose to the challenge and skated extremely well after D/L retired. Well, Umbrellas anyway; Dark Eyes was really not right for them. D/W may not have been the top American team, but wouldn't you say they have led something of a charmed life in the past season and a half? In just about every event they entered except 2009 Worlds, the top ranked team either withdrew or was competing with injury issues (2008-9 GPF being the exception, but two teams WD there). While I won't deny that they, too rose to the challenge for the most part, this has given D/W a different sort of shortcut to being perceived as an elite team.

I will not repeat my comments from the previous post because it's no secret I'm not a huge fan of D/W's skating. Here's a question, though: at 2008 Worlds, D/W finished less than a point ahead of P/B, and only beat them in the FD. Now they are 9 points ahead of them after the OD. I don't think this OD is Nathalie and Fabian's greatest program, but have D/W really made such a spectacular leap forward compared to just about every team they skated against? Several other teams that actually were ahead of D/W in the past, sometimes by large margins, no longer are (if not in direct competition than in scores). I'm just curious as to how that somewhat suddenly came about. Maybe USFS decided, at some point, that they were backing the wrong team?

Originally Posted by i love to skate

Is it a bad thing to have a list of high goals or to wear manly costumes? V/M have the most innovative lifts out there - doing a loop off of your partner's thigh?? I think that sounds pretty crazy. They aren't always elegant - for example, Dark Eyes and Pink Floyd.

Don't go there. The "masculinity in skating" debate never ends well.

As to what Scott said - I didn't see that answered here - he basically said they're going to Tokyo to skate against the second best team in the world. Everyone knows that he thinks he and Tessa are the best so I didn't think it was that big a deal. Unless there was something else?

V/M have a much better FD so lets wait and see who ends up on top at the GPF. And Olys, well, I really hope DelSchoes will come back strong and win the OGM .

As to what Scott said - I didn't see that answered here - he basically said they're going to Tokyo to skate against the second best team in the world. Everyone knows that he thinks he and Tessa are the best so I didn't think it was that big a deal. Unless there was something else?

I've found the exact quote.

After winning the compulsory dance Friday, Moir was emphatic that Canton is home to the two top ice dance teams in the world.

"I'm not going to hide it: It's not like we haven't seen our competition, either," he said. "We train with, in my opinion, the second-best team in the world every day. I've felt that way all year -- and I think I'll feel that way until April."

I don't get what he exactly meant by that. But if he means he and Tessa are the first-best team in the world already, to me it's off-putting. Along with his/ their previous highly patriotic statements. No crime, he's behaving, just don't like it.

I still find Scott handsome, think he's a really gifted actor on the ice and all though. Rooting for V/M.

Didn't care much for D/W just 2 seasons ago, saw them live, wasn't impressed. But then a year ago they suddenly started to dance. And now I'm slowly turning into their fan.

I don't get what he exactly meant by that. But if he means he and Tessa are the first-best team in the world already, to me it's off-putting. Along with his/ their previous highly patriotic statements. No crime, he's behaving, just don't like it.

I still find Scott handsome, think he's a really gifted actor on the ice and all though. Rooting for V/M.

Didn't care much for D/W just 2 seasons ago, saw them live, wasn't impressed. But then a year ago they suddenly started to dance. And now I'm slowly turning into their fan.

I have had a complete 360 when I hear skaters talk of themselves like this, including when it comes from Plushy. If they don't think they're the best, why the hell should we? Do I want my favourite skater to go out there and claim that they're probably the 4th or 5th best skater in the world right now? Heck no. They better go into the competition thinking they are number 1. Any athlete doesn't have a shot if they don't believe they belong at the top. So yes, I vow to never again criticize Plushy or Joubert for being overconfident.

For at least the two previous seasons,we haven't seen V/M's ultimate costumes until the final competition and it never looks to me like they're trying and discarding various ideas, just holding something in reserve to keep it fresh. So while there's been nothing inappropriate in either of her GP dresses (and I think she wore blue in Thornhill) , I'm holding out hope for some colour to be introduced. Some shade of pink or rose would be ideal .Well, it is the colour of love. But whatever they choose, I'm betting we won't see the final version until Vancouver.

I always loved V/M's Dark Eyes..My family had a male Gypsy acquaintance who used to joke that Gypsy men didn't go out to dance so much as stand around and pose in bars. A couple of Scott's individual bits of choreography and his delivery expressed that to a T.The program was very Gypsy without stooping to caricature, as so many do.

I definitely felt D/L had to stop being coy about whether they would retire or not when V/M moved up to seniors and it became obvious they'd be right on D/L's heels immediately and were only going to get better.

Scott's comment..oh please..not sure when he said it..either he was talking about competing against B/A who as the World's Silver medalists were ranked the second best team in the world. Or if it was after their departure, he was giving D/W their due. V/M or D/W have never been ones to openly snipe at their opponents...Whatever...

Eh isn't V/M's FD outfits very wedding-ish? It definitely looks like the sort of thing a bride and groom wear to a wedding reception, no? (maybe throw in a tux for the man)

I like the Thornhill/SC ones but I sure wouldn't mind if they swapped it for something better. Totally agree that Tessa and Scott are gorgeous looks-wise.

Hmm fair enough jcoates! The closest comment IIRC was Brenda Irving (I think?) saying V/M served notice; some day, they'll be on the Worlds podium. No one said when though. And given Ice Dance's reputation for making youngsters wait their turn under the 6.0, that could have been one hell of a long time. I think at that time no one knew for sure whether D/L (IIRC they said if they could, they wanted to skate in Vancouver) and/or DenStav would retire so both V/M and D/W were waiting in the wings. V/M were clearly the successors in Canada but D/L was still better back then.

Universal Sports should be shot for chucking C/L and Kerrs (chuck one of the most entertaining teams? :sheesh

Excited for the rest of the competition (Men is a real nail-biter)! I hope everyone skates well today!

I have had a complete 360 when I hear skaters talk of themselves like this, including when it comes from Plushy. If they don't think they're the best, why the hell should we? Do I want my favourite skater to go out there and claim that they're probably the 4th or 5th best skater in the world right now? Heck no. They better go into the competition thinking they are number 1. Any athlete doesn't have a shot if they don't believe they belong at the top. So yes, I vow to never again criticize Plushy or Joubert for being overconfident.

Well, maybe it's just the wording then. If he didn't refer to D/W at all, I wouldn't pay any special attention to his words in the 1st place. If a reigning worlds bronze medalist thinks he's the first-best in the world it's prob great for his self-esteem. I wouldn't know.

But what if Scott means D/W were robbed and should have had that worlds silver instead of the other team? With that I wholeheartedly agree

Originally Posted by colleen o'neill

Scott's comment..oh please..he was talking about competing against B/A who as the World's Silver medalists were ranked the second best team in the world.neithe V/M or D/W have ever been ones to snipe at their opponents.

Well, look, Canadian isn't my 1st language, so I might have had misinterpreted Scott's words. I took his

"We train with, in my opinion, the second-best team in the world every day. I've felt that way all year

as a description of a current situation. Not of the past, when B/A trained in S/Z's group.

Well, maybe it's just the wording then. If he didn't refer to D/W at all, I wouldn't pay any special attention to his words in the 1st place. If a reigning worlds bronze medalist thinks he's the first-best in the world it's prob great for his self-esteem. I wouldn't know.

But what if Scott means D/W were robbed and should have had that worlds silver instead of the other team? With that I wholeheartedly agree

I thought he meant that himself and Tessa were number one and then Meryl and Charlie were number two. Who knows though...maybe he was talking about B/A?

V/M were put in a position to take over as the top Canadian team, but they rose to the challenge and skated extremely well after D/L retired. Well, Umbrellas anyway; Dark Eyes was really not right for them. D/W may not have been the top American team, but wouldn't you say they have led something of a charmed life in the past season and a half? In just about every event they entered except 2009 Worlds, the top ranked team either withdrew or was competing with injury issues (2008-9 GPF being the exception, but two teams WD there). While I won't deny that they, too rose to the challenge for the most part, this has given D/W a different sort of shortcut to being perceived as an elite team.

I will not repeat my comments from the previous post because it's no secret I'm not a huge fan of D/W's skating. Here's a question, though: at 2008 Worlds, D/W finished less than a point ahead of P/B, and only beat them in the FD. Now they are 9 points ahead of them after the OD. I don't think this OD is Nathalie and Fabian's greatest program, but have D/W really made such a spectacular leap forward compared to just about every team they skated against? Several other teams that actually were ahead of D/W in the past, sometimes by large margins, no longer are (if not in direct competition than in scores). I'm just curious as to how that somewhat suddenly came about. Maybe USFS decided, at some point, that they were backing the wrong team?

I believe I made many of the points in less detail that you just laid out either in my original post or subsequent ones in this thread

V/M did indeed rise to the challenge laid out for them.

Regarding injuries and withdrawals of other competitors, I would say yes an no. Did those events open doors for D/W?... yes. But they also had to take up the challenge as well. They frequently did that last season, particularly with their free dance. However, that has often been the nature of ice dance in particular and skating in general. Usually a team needed to make itself noticed first either with a splash or by working its way up the ladder. Then there is the wait for the right window of opportunity to move up dramatically. Sometimes this happens in the wake of retirements, sometimes with withdrawals. Would Krylova and Ovsianikov have won 2000 worlds if her back had been healthy even going up against A/P's Carmina Burana? Who knows? Certainly A/P benefited from K/O's retirement. But they might still have made strides if the retirement had not happened. A similar case can be made in the 2006 Olympic pairs event. Most would like to assume that S/Z would have won if Hongbo had never been injured. But that would be ignoring the fact that T/M had significantly closed the gap with them prior to the injury and were real rivals at that point.

As far as rapid improvement, I'll make two points. First, if you go back to 2007 Worlds, D/W were ahead of two teams who beat them in 2008 (K/N and F/S). In the wake of two retirements and their previous placement, a top five finish in 2008 was conceivable on paper. Yet they failed to make a good early impression on the fall grand prix in 2007 and by Worlds in 2008 were playing catch-up. (That probably proved to be a very valuable lesson for them at the time. They have made a concerted effort since then to start their seasons strong and establish a solid foundation for themselves and with the judges as they build to the big events.) While all this was going on, they were still the #3 team in their camp behind two national champs. One could argue that they were not getting as much attention to their skating as the two other teams. (Pure speculation).

However, after B/A left, the quality of their programs improved noticeably as did their skating skills and performance. There was definitely a concerted effort last season to insert as much difficulty into their programs as possible to live up to their talent, likely in response to some of the criticisms from the previous season. Combined with an improved sense of choreography and a little luck, the right balance began to be struck and the judges noticed. On the other hand, P/B had a very slow start last season, like D/W did the season before. The gains they had made dissolved in the wake of wide-spread improvement throughout the second tier of the top 10. The Kerrs improved, F/S did as well until Worlds.

Second, if there's one difference between D/W and teams they've passed it's that the right balance has now been struck between difficulty (with clarity) and concept to make the whole package very judge-able. It started in the FD last season and now extends to their OD this year. (I know that many don't love their FD this year, but it is very judge-able technically and conceptually. You could argue that the Kerrs' issue is that they are not always the cleanest team regardless of entertainment value and that their difficulty can waver. P/B can be somewhat inaccessible to the audience and judges. That can hurt them. I think they also sacrifice difficulty at times in favor of clarity. If they punched it up a bit, and made the choreography more "gettable" they would definitely be in the mix. (DelShoes had similar issues in the past btw).

So it may not be that D/W's scores are inflated, but that they are now living up to the talent the judges see in them for a long time. They certainly can handle more difficulty than either Italian team and the Kerrs and at the moment, P/B as well. And as has been pointed out before, the rulebook's definition of what constitutes PCS does not always match our own layman's expectations. BTW, this is not a finite assessment. Any of these teams can improve or regress.

Scott is a "guy's guy" though. Very casual, plays hockey, and I think he wants to be a cop when he is finished skating. He likes simple outfits...I just don't see what's wrong with that as the op originally said? Isn't it the same as people praising Joubert for using music that he likes and for saying that he isn't trying to be something he's not? It's the same thing with Scott, IMO

I was trying to tell if Tessa had made any changes to her dress after the trouble they had in the OD at SC. It looked pretty much the same to me, just as long but the skirt might have been a little less full. Maybe someone with better fashion sense than I could comment.

I was trying to tell if Tessa had made any changes to her dress after the trouble they had in the OD at SC. It looked pretty much the same to me, just as long but the skirt might have been a little less full. Maybe someone with better fashion sense than I could comment.

It's a completely different dress than the one she wore at Skate Canada. The dress she wore here is the same one that she wore at TEB